Against the Current (兰香如故) Ending Explained: Is It a Happy or Sad Ending? What Happens to Xu Lanxiang and Lin Jinqi

Against the Current (兰香如故, Lán Xiāng Rú Gù) reached its finale this week, and it reached different parts of its audience at very different times. Tencent Video opened a paid early-access package on the evening of October 5 that let anyone willing to pay unlock the ending straight away — more than two weeks before the regular broadcast caught up. CCTV-8's nightly 9:30 p.m. slot didn't air the last episode until October 11. Tencent's own VIP tier, one step below the paid early unlock, reaches it today, October 12.

That staggered rollout is most of the story behind why this finale generated so much discussion before most viewers had actually seen it. Here's what's been reported about how it ends, who said what about it, and which parts are still genuinely unsettled.

Full spoilers follow for the finale, sourced from Chinese entertainment coverage published after the October 5 early-access release — not from watching the episode directly.

Quick answer

Multiple Chinese entertainment outlets, reporting independently after the October 5 paid release, describe the same bittersweet ending: Lin Jinqi (林锦岐), played by Liu Xueyi, dies around age 50 when an old war wound resurfaces, after the Shen family's false treason charge is finally overturned. Xu Lanxiang (许兰香) — Shen Jialan (沈嘉兰) under the name she's lived with since the household took her in — outlives him by decades, raising their children alone in the Lin household before dying peacefully at 80. It is not framed as a clean tragedy: Chinese coverage describes a reunion-in-the-next-life vow between them before he dies, and the drama frames her later decades as purposeful rather than merely sad, built around clearing her family's name through writing.

Whether that counts as a happy ending or a sad one genuinely splits the people who've actually seen it, which is the more interesting part of this story.

The paid-access controversy, not just the plot

The ending didn't leak by accident — Tencent Video sold it. On the evening of October 5, with the regular broadcast still roughly 17 episodes from the finale, the platform opened a ¥25 early-access package advertised as a direct route to episode 47. Entertainment outlet ctdsb.net reported that viewers who paid got a dead male lead for their money, and that the backlash was immediate enough to put "Lin Jinqi dies" on Weibo's trending list the same night.

The show's own cast reacted in public, which is part of why this spread as fast as it did. Lead actress Tan Songyun posted that she'd bought the early-access package herself and still hadn't worked up the nerve to watch it. Co-star Jiang Xin (who plays a different role in the drama) replied in character, telling Lan Xiang's story "cost you enough" and warning Tan Songyun away from watching unless she wanted to cry. Director Huang Yingxiang had separately said, before the backlash, that she cried while editing Lin Jinqi's final scene. None of that is a plot summary — it's the production team confirming, in their own words, that the ending people were upset about is the one that actually airs.

Do Xu Lanxiang and Lin Jinqi end up together?

Not in the sense the question usually means. The central injustice of the show — the false treason charge that destroyed the Shen family and forced Shen Jialan into hiding as a servant — does get resolved before the finale ends; that part of the plot lands the way four seasons of plotting point toward. But the romance doesn't get the usual reward for it. Sina's entertainment desk, reporting October 7 on audience reaction, describes Lin Jinqi's death scene as including a vow tying the two together by a red thread with the promise that they'll recognize each other in the next life — the kind of detail that reads as the drama choosing to answer "do they end up together" with "eventually, not now."

Xu Lanxiang's three decades alone aren't played as pure grief, either, per the same coverage: she spends them finishing the work of clearing her family's name through her writing, and dies, as one report put it, "in her sleep, holding her mother's protective charm" — a detail aimed at making her ending peaceful rather than merely lonely.

Does this match the novel, or did the show change it?

This is where the reporting disagrees with itself, and it's worth being upfront about rather than picking a side. One widely-shared framing — echoed in several of the viewer-reaction pieces — says the drama swapped out the source novel's "grow old together" ending for a tragic one. But at least one report describes the novel, He Yanshan's 《兰香缘》, as already having largely settled the characters' fates on the page, which would mean the drama followed its source rather than rewriting it. Both claims come from entertainment coverage rather than a statement from the novelist or the production, and neither has displaced the other. If you've read the novel and know which version is right, that's a genuinely open question the Chinese press hasn't resolved as of this writing.

One popular theory about why the ending leaked two-and-a-half weeks early — that someone paid to spread the spoiler deliberately, to manufacture a trending-topic moment — showed up in audience discussion but isn't backed by anything beyond speculation in the coverage. Worth knowing it's out there; not worth repeating as fact.

What's still unconfirmed

Everything above comes from Chinese entertainment press covering the October 5 paid-access release and the public reaction to it, not from an independent viewing of the episode or an official studio recap. The regular broadcast only finished catching up to this ending in the last day or two (CCTV-8 on October 11, Tencent's VIP tier today), so there has not yet been time for the kind of detailed post-finale breakdown — character-by-character, scene-by-scene — that usually follows a Chinese drama finale by about a week. Treat the plot points above as "this is what multiple outlets, and the cast, say happens," not as a verified scene-by-scene recap.

The show's total episode count is its own separate dispute — our time-period piece covers in full why Tencent's own release structure (a 31-episode part plus a 16-episode continuation) and outside listings (a flat 40-episode count from one Chinese TV directory) don't agree, even though press covering this finale consistently calls it the 47th and final episode.

Frequently asked

Does Lin Jinqi die? Yes, according to every post-finale report found — around age 50, from an old injury, after the main political plot (the false treason charge against the Shen family) is resolved.

Does Xu Lanxiang die? Eventually, not in the finale itself. Reporting says she lives roughly another three decades after Lin Jinqi and dies peacefully at 80.

Is the ending happy or sad? Both, depending who you ask. The injustice at the center of the plot is resolved, which is the "win." The romance doesn't get a conventional happy ending — the male lead dies — which is why audience reaction split so sharply once the paid-access release got out.

Has the ending actually been confirmed by the studio or Tencent? Not in the form of an official recap. What's confirmed is that the episode aired — first through paid early access on October 5, then on the regular CCTV-8 and Tencent broadcast through October 11–12 — and that the cast and director have publicly reacted to it in terms consistent with the reported plot. No studio press release summarizing the ending has been found.

Does the drama follow its source novel? Disputed in the coverage itself — see the section above. Some outlets say the show changed the ending; at least one says the novel's ending was close to this already.

---

More on Against the Current:

• What Time Period Is Against the Current Set In? Ming Dynasty Explained
• Against the Current Famous Quotes Explained
• Characters & Family Tree: The Lin Household
• Against the Current Filming Locations: The Hand-Built Ming Garden
• 12 Chinese Idioms Every Against the Current Fan Should Know

A quick vocabulary note for anyone who followed this story through the Chinese-language coverage: the ideal this ending is measured against — a couple growing old together — is exactly what 白头偕老 (bái tóu xié lǎo) means. It's the four-character phrase under almost every "did they get the ending they deserved" argument in Chinese drama fandom, including this one.